


Pizza Night

by yhlee (etothey)



Category: Cyteen Series - C. J. Cherryh
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-01
Updated: 2013-12-01
Packaged: 2018-01-03 05:06:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1066105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/etothey/pseuds/yhlee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The importance of pizza at Reseune.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pizza Night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [opalmatrix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/opalmatrix/gifts).



"So this pizza topping thing," Justin said. The box was mostly empty and there were two slices left, as usual. He should get up and wash his hands, but it was so hard to convince himself to move.

Grant, who had washed his hands earlier and was idly positioning and repositioning the one red pillow as if that would somehow right their situation, looked up and rolled his eyes. "Oh, God," he said. "Not the pizza topping thing again."

They'd had a long day's work, to the point where it was hard for Justin not to look at a set of curtains, curtains of all things, and see deep-sets mapped onto the folds and fissures of cloth. Grant had joked earlier that there was probably a tape for that and Justin had thrown a cushion at him and missed, prompting jokes about born-man hand-eye coordination. It was one of those days, which meant it was one of those days for pizza.

Someday, he supposed, he would feel motivated to learn to cook properly, as in something that wasn't the occasional half-assed sandwich. There was a staggering variety of tape courses for cooking. Cuisines with confusing names. But even he couldn't be paranoid about tape cooking courses. And even he couldn't suspect the Emorys and Nyes of the world of putting worms in 100 Creative Uses for Keis; it would be beneath people who thought nothing of eating every other night at _Changes_. And even if he were paranoid, there were plenty of old-fashioned cookbooks in the archives. Presumably it was possible to learn from those if humanity had been doing so for centuries. But it was so much easier just to order food, and 85.3% of time (yes, he'd checked), they went for pizza.

"No, really," Justin said to Grant, a little blurrily. He probably shouldn't have drunk that vodka as fast as he had. "Lately you've been ordering a different topping every time. I think you're confusing them. Is this some sort of crazed azi attempt to learn to ride the flux?"

Grant let the pillow fall and hooked his arm around Justin, then began massaging his upper arm. "I love how tactful you become when you've had a shot or two," he said, although he didn't sound offended. "Maybe I'm just trying to compensate for the fact that you have been eating nothing but pepperoni and sausage since you were eight?"

"I thought it was six," Justin said, pulling the number out of the air. He didn't actually remember.

"Please," Grant said, "like I trust your memory over mine." He was grinning.

"Fine, it was eight," Justin said. "Does it matter?"

"See," Grant said, "you're averaging again. It must be nice to live in this sea of imprecision and still feel secure." He drew his arm back and ran his fingers through Justin's hair, stroked the nape of his neck.

Justin shivered, felt himself rouse. "Do you think I'm extra-stressed lately?" he said dryly.

"With you it's more fruitful to ask when you're _not_ stressed," Grant said. "Come to bed. I hate to think what Ari would say if we messed up her pillows."

"I think I already got pizza sauce on that black one," Justin said wryly. "Let me clean it up."

"I'll do it."

"No, I'll—"

Grant captured his hand, closed his mouth around Justin's fingers, sucked on them. When he withdrew, he said, "Really," in a low, teasing voice. "I could make 'you are what you eat' jokes but—"

"That tickles," Justin complained.

"Really? Let me try it again."

"What happened to cleaning up the pillow?" Justin asked, some time later.

Grant, shirtless, smiled lazily at him, then headed for the kitchen. He returned with a small damp towel and set to work dabbing away the stain. "Happy now?" he asked when he had finished.

"Are you really bothered by my pizza topping steadfastness that much?"

Grant sighed. "Let me guess. This is some kind of way of distracting yourself from that weird issue in that Gamma's sets today."

"No," Justin said equably, "I'm just curious. Can't a man have a frivolous conversation once in a while? Does everything have to be urgent work problems and secrets of state and emergencies around here? Don't answer that."

"Look," Grant said, "just come to bed and we can have some more frivolous conversations there. Unless, of course, you'd rather I exercise some of my other talents some more."

"If you're trying to get me to blush, I'm not fifteen anymore."

"I know," Grant said, and grinned. "I'll just have to try harder. C'mon."

* * *

"Pizza," Ari said firmly.

"The same toppings?" Florian said.

She could tell that Florian wouldn't dream of ever telling sera that he wasn't so sure about that "pineapple" item. It wasn't really pineapple either, it was some substitute done up to resemble pineapple. Apparently real pineapple was even harder to get in any form than orange.

Catlin also wouldn't ever dream of telling sera that she could just make sandwiches the way they did when they didn't get meals delivered. She was standing very properly doing an extra special security check of...the kitchen knives? The knife sharpener? Ari had no doubt that Catlin at least knew not only how to use the knife sharpener but how to kill people with it in twenty-eight efficient and, occasionally, excruciating ways. As opposed to some of the other kitchen implements they had found in here when they first moved in. (Not that Ari knew how to use them either. Had Ari Senior known, later in life? She couldn't imagine that the people who were so obsessed with turning her into a replica of Ari Senior would have overlooked cooking lessons if that had featured in Ari Senior's childhood.)

"We are going to be eating pizza once a week until we see what the appeal is," Ari said. The more she could do to understand Justin, the better. Even if that meant submitting herself to something as greasy as pizza. "That includes eating pizza with the _toppings_ that Justin and Grant are ordering."

"I'll put in the order, sera," Florian said, very proper, very azi.

In the meantime, Ari considered whether there was a way to Work Justin's food preferences to something a little more tolerable in the long run.


End file.
